Ted Danson, who will be appearing on the hit show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, had a real-life brush with forensics when he found a skull in the woods near his home. The discovery was made by the actor, son of an anthropologist, when he was a child, and he still didn’t know what he should have done when he found it with his pals, according to WENN. He may only play a CSI on television, but his dad was the real thing! They say imitation is the best form of flattery; is the actor showing his affection for his father by taking on this role?

The 63-year-old actor is probably best known for his long-running role as Sam Malone on the hit sitcom Cheers. Ted Danson tells the tale this way:

I grew up around skulls and went on digs with my dad and once, when I was 11-years-old, I was out playing with my buddies in the woods and we were playing army, and we came across a skull that had a patch of hair here and a little round hole here and a bigger hole here, and I went, “Oh, cool. Let’s play Romans and Gauls.” I stuck it on the end of a pole, and off we went for the rest of the day. I came home and told my father. He went through the roof… He went looking for it with the police the next day and couldn’t find it.

Ted Danson goes on to say the skull was eventually found five years later and was later identified. It’s an amazing coincidence that the actor discovered a human skull as a child, since most children are far more likely to stumble on animal bones. His real-life experience having an anthropologist as a father should lend a certain believability to his role on CSI.